Singapore Prize For Heritage PreservationSingapore Prize For Heritage Preservation
The list of prizes, medals and awards in Singapore is extensive. The country has a reputation for excellence in many areas including education, culture and business. Many of its citizens have received accolades and recognition for their achievements, from Nobel Prizes to local awards.
A new prize for preserving Singapore’s heritage is set to honour the work of historians who have contributed to the preservation of the city’s history. The National Heritage Board (NHB) is working with the Heritage Society of Singapore to establish a heritage prize for those who preserve buildings, sites and places in Singapore.
The prize will recognise individuals and organisations that have made significant contributions to the conservation of heritage. The inaugural award will be presented in 2022 and is slated to be a biennial event. The prize will be based on the Heritage Society’s “heritage values” of ensuring that the nation’s historical legacy is preserved and that people have access to the information that is important to them.
British Prince William walked the green carpet on Tuesday at the first Singapore edition of the Earthshot prize, where winners were honoured for solutions ranging from solar-powered dryers that combat food waste to making electric car batteries cleaner. Celebrities including actresses Cate Blanchett, Donnie Yen and Lana Condor and Australian wildlife conservationist Robert Irwin accompanied him at the ceremony. Mr William said that the solutions demonstrated by the 15 finalists proved that hope remains in the fight against climate change.
NUS senior advisor (university and global relations) Kishore Mahbubani mooted the idea for the prize in a Straits Times column last month, saying that nations are “imagined communities”. The prize will be administered by the NUS Department of History and awarded every three years. It will include a monetary prize of S$50,000.
Prof Miksic’s book on the archeological finds in Kampong Gelam, also known as Yellow Mansion, was deemed to be the best of 29 submissions by Singaporeans and overseas scholars. It was shortlisted by a panel of four judges, headed by NUS East Asian Institute chairman Wang Gungwu.
The winner will be announced in October, but the prize’s organising committee may broaden the criteria to allow for fiction, movies and other forms of non-fictional works to qualify. A spokesman for the prize’s nominating committee, which reviewed 31 books submitted by publishers, told The Straits Times: “We may look at expanding it to other formats that tell our stories in creative and innovative ways.”
The prize is supported by Temasek Trust, the philanthropic arm of Temasek Holdings. It is a joint venture with the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI), which is hosted by NUS and funded by the European Union. GGGI’s aim is to bring together leaders from government, businesses and academia to develop innovative solutions to tackle the global environmental crisis. It has already awarded prizes for clean energy, sustainable cities and the protection of biodiversity in developing countries. GGGI’s other initiatives include the G7 Innovation Prize, which launched in 2016. It rewards entrepreneurs with outstanding innovations that contribute to a more resilient and sustainable world.